a. and sb. Pros. [a. F. trochaïque. (c. 1550 in Godef., Compl.), or ad. L. trochaic-us, ad. Gr. τροχαικός, f. τροχαῖος: see TROCHEE.]

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  A.  adj. 1. Of a verse, rhythm, etc.: Consisting of, characterized by, or based on trochees.

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1589.  Puttenham, Eng. Poesie, II. xiii. (Arb.), 136. Verses where the sharpe accent falles vpon the first and third, and so make the verse wholly Trochaicke.

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1776.  Burney, Hist. Mus. (1789), I. vi. 73. The dialogue admitted, occasionally, Trochaic verses.

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1835.  T. Mitchell, Acharn. of Aristoph., 190, note. In the structure of the comic trochaic tetrameter catalectic, the nice points of tragic verse are freely neglected.

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  2.  Of a foot, etc.: Of the nature of a trochee; consisting of a long (or an accented) followed by a short (or an unaccented) syllable.

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  Trochaic spondee, a spondee having the accent or ictus upon the first syllable.

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1756–82.  J. Warton, Ess. Pope, II. 213. An intermixture of those different feet (iambic and trochaic particularly) into which our language naturally falls.

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1827.  Tate, Grk. Metres, in Theatre of Greeks (ed. 2), 426. In the two following lines will be found specimens of … the Trochaic Spondee in all its places.

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1888.  H. W. Chandler, Elem. Grk. Accentuation, I. i. (ed. 2), 2. A word with a trochaic ending and accented penultimate must be properispome.

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  B.  sb. A trochaic verse or foot.

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1693.  Dryden, Juvenal, Ded. (1697), 44. One Poem consisted only of Hexameters; and another was entirely of Iambiques; a third of Trochaiques.

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1756–82.  J. Warton, Ess. Pope (ed. 4), I. ii. 55. He conjures the powers below in beautiful trochaics.

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1827.  Tate, Grk. Metres, in Theatre of Greeks (ed. 2), 427. This nicety of structure in the long Trochaic of Tragedy.

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  Also Trochaical a. (rare); hence Trochaicality, trochaic character.

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1755.  Johnson, Trochaical, consisting of trochees.

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1856.  [M. N. Thomson], Plu-Ri-Bus-Tah, p. iii. He supposes it to be an inconsistent, impracticable, irreconcilable, paradoxical, trochaical romance.

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1910.  Sat. Rev., 18 June, 791/1. A trochee of quite excessive trochaicality.

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